Who is there that has been bred up in the Peripatetick
philosophy, who does not think the Ten Names, under which are ranked
the Ten Predicaments, to be exactly conformable to the nature of
things? Who is there of that school that is not persuaded that
substantial forms, vegetative souls, abhorrence of a vacuum,
intentional species, &c., are something real? These words men have
learned from their very entrance upon knowledge, and have found
their masters and systems lay great stress upon them: and therefore
they cannot quit the opinion, that they are conformable to nature, and
are the representations of something that really exists. The
Platonists have their soul of the world, and the Epicureans their
endeavour towards motion in their atoms when at rest. There is
scarce any sect in philosophy has not a distinct set of terms that
others understand not. But yet this gibberish, which, in the
weakness of human understanding, serves so well to palliate men's
ignorance, and cover their errors, comes, by familiar use amongst
those of the same tribe, to seem the most important part of
language, and of all other the terms the most significant: and
should aerial and aetherial vehicles come once, by the prevalency of
that doctrine, to be generally received anywhere, no doubt those terms
would make impressions on men's minds, so as to establish them in
the persuasion of the reality of such things, as much as
Peripatetick forms and intentional species have heretofore done.
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